The United States must work to ease tensions with North Korea and prevent the emergence of another nuclear threat, national security experts at Texas A&M said during a panel discussion Wednesday on U.S. relations with North Korea.
A&M faculty members answered questions and discussed the threat that North Korea poses to the United States and explained the history of the United States’ conflict with the communist regime at a forum sponsored by the Memorial Student Center Wiley Lecture Series.
Col. Joseph Cerami, a lecturer in national security policy at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service, said the possibility of a North Korean attack is a concern for the United States.
“North Korea has missiles that could potentially hit the Western U.S.,” Cerami said.
Dr. Joseph G. Dawson, professor of history and director of the A&M Military Studies Institute, said North Korea has made many aggressive military efforts since June 1950, when it invaded South Korea and started the Korean War.
“There has been a sequence of hostilities,” he said. “The threat from North Korea is really nothing new.”
Cerami said the United States should do everything it could to keep North Korea from developing nuclear technology.
Dr. Jae Moon, an assistant professor with the Bush School, said differences in culture have increased tensions between the United States and North Korea.
“Mistrust and miscommunication have caused the tension to escalate,” Moon said. “America must understand that the nature of the North Korean regime is very different from the American democratic system.”
Dawson said a group of analysts and historians believe the United States is to blame for the current crisis in North Korea.
Neither the United States nor North Korea fulfilled their obligations regarding an agreement that required North Korea to cease nuclear weapons developments in return for the United States building nuclear power sources in North Korea, Dawson said.
Moon, originally from South Korea, said because of the military threat to South Korea, South Koreans living in the United States thought their country should become directly involved in the negotiations.
“[Native South Koreans] are frustrated with South Korea playing the mediator,”he said. “They think South Korea should be in a central position in this conflict. There is a strong consensus that North Korea should not have nuclear weapons.”